Mourn the lost art of Letter-writing? Well, Don't.

Recently, I’ve been reading essays that lament the lost art of letter writing, and in some ways they’ve echoed my own feelings on the matter.  But I’ve also concluded that grieving the loss of letter writing is moronic, because writing letters is still an achievable quest.  It’s like mourning the loss of...say, hamburgers.  Who the hell is stopping you from eating a Big Mac?  No one - not even my high-maintenance vegetarian daughter.  And no one is stopping us from writing letters, either - not even the barely viable U.S. Postal Service.  If you miss getting letters in the mail, try sending one first.

Up until about two years ago, my friend in Milwaukee and I corresponded via letters several times a year.  We decided it was simply a more satisfying way to converse than email.  When I noticed one of her letters amongst the daily piles of junk mail, I handled it with eager anticipation and mentally set aside a time when I’d be able to relax on the sofa with a cold drink in hand and really digest the letter’s content, rather than the cursory scan I give messages received on a computer.  A letter is more urgent.  More tangible.  More vivid.

And more meaningful.

Receiving a Dear-John Letter?  Heart-breaking.  Receiving a Dear-John Text?  Merely off-putting.  A love-letter?  Inspiring.  A love-text?  At best, kind of cute.  Maybe.  Possibly.

And how much less meaningful would it have been if Joe Cocker had sung,

                She sent me a text

                Said she couldn’t live without me no more

Not sure that would have been a hit.

So over the years, my friend and I kept up our letter writing, technology be damned.  Year after year, we shared our thoughts and fears and dreams on paper.

And then we didn’t.  We just stopped, the same way so many others have.  But no one forced us to.

Last week while visiting the FDR museum in New York, I read a copy of the Pearl Harbor speech that solidified the United States’ commitment to join the war in 1941.  It was typed with several hand-written cross outs and substitutions, including FDR’s decision to add the word “infamy” in place of “world history.”  And it made me wonder: what archives will remain of President Obama’s and future presidents’ tenures as commander-in-chief?  Will we gather around a hard drive?  A printout of texts?  Will we get to read Obama’s message, “FYI, we got Bid Laden.  LOL.” 

What will remain?

All three of my kids are currently at camp, and the best part about it isn’t having a quiet house or a chance for my wife and me to dine together; it’s the letters they’re sending to us that so beautifully capture their personalities.   Just today, I received a letter from one of my daughters, and she wrote:

Grandma wrote me again and wasted no time in telling me that (my sister) has one-upped me in letter writing, so I may have to write to her again soon.  I finished reading In Cold Blood and I have to say HOLY CRAP!!  It scared me out of my mind!  But so well written!  Go Truman Capote!

Yeah, it’s nothing highbrow or earth-shatteringly important, but it captures her spirit in a way that’s seldom conveyed in an email.  And who knew that camp could reinvigorate a dying art form?

I’ve enjoyed receiving these letters so much that I’ve made a decision to write a letter a month ongoing.  It could be to a relative or a friend.  It could even be to someone living in my house.  And it doesn’t matter if I get one in return.  I’m just going to write.  Maybe you should too.

And who knows?  Hundreds of years from now, maybe our rather mundane lives will be studied and analyzed the way historians today research the life and times of great men and women from years ago, not because of the content of our years on Earth, but because ours will be the only lives captured through a tangible trail of the written word. 

Memorialized by default.

A Period of Unactivity

Oh goodness.  So many ideas to formulate into workable pieces.  I'm devoted to getting new essays on my website, but a few mild monkey wrenches in life's plan have resulted in delays.  The most recent?  I'm currently on day 3 of likely 6 days without power (currently 95 degrees upstairs, and rising).  But in a week's time, I expect to be back in action, not only with the website, but with my fiction writing that has temporarily been nudged by much less inventive pursuits. 

I'll be doing it all in air conditioning.

The Internet is (apparently) Not Forever

We’ve been led to believe that the internet is forever, but the recent disappearance of two treasure troves of worthless data have convinced me otherwise.  Diamonds may be forever.  Some say God’s love is forever.  An old photo of you puking your guts out at a party in 1988?  That’s probably forever too, which is exactly what’s prompted parents worldwide to have The Discussion with their college-bound offspring. 

But cool websites that offer hour after hour of procrastination opportunities for those avoiding their responsibilities?  Those are ephemeral fantasies, subject to the whims of corporate stupidity and pimple-faced techno geeks who, rather than postponing sleep into the wee hours by perusing trivial websites, stay up late destroying them, leaving guys like me wondering what the hell to do when insomnia strikes.

In 2007, a brilliant archive of Siskel and Ebert’s movie reviews was made available for cinema lovers.   Although the database didn’t include the early PBS years prior to Disney’s purchase of the show, every review from 1986 to the present was viewable in all its digital glory, searchable by movie title, actor or director.  Also available were special programs on the Oscars, top-ten best movies of the year and worst movies of the year.  What more could a film aficionado desire?

After an illness stole Ebert’s ability to speak, Disney attempted to revive the show, but in 2010 it was cancelled after 24 years of national syndication and a full 35 years after Siskel and Ebert began reviewing movies on PBS.

Bummer, right?  But oh well, at least fans still had access to a great database of movie reviews.

Not so.  Disney/ABC pulled the plug on the database, further corroborating the assumption that corporations are run by numbskulls.  Since the database had already been created, and since no new movies were being added, keeping the website fully functional would have required minimal resources, and I’ll bet that enough movie lovers would have paid a small annual fee to keep the archive not only operational, but profitable.  I know would have.

In the end, The People shall prevail.  In lieu of a corporate-sponsored archive, two movie lovers have started the website siskelandebert.org, whose mission is to grow an on-line collection of complete Siskel and Ebert programs that viewers themselves donate.  The database continues to grow, and unlike the original Disney-sponsored site, this one includes shows that pre-date the nationally syndicated shows that started in 1986.  It’ll probably never be as complete as what was offered on the original archive (as of this writing, 1986 only has 9 episodes), but it’ll at least be a viable option for those of us who like to piss away our lives living in the past. 

Now for the not-so-happy ending to another tragic loss of worthless data.  Fans of prog-rock will likely remember the amazing forgottenyesterdays.com, an extensive tour log of the group Yes, detailing every performance since their inception in the late 60s.  Set lists, transcriptions of what was said between songs, fan reviews and remembrances of the shows, ticket stubs  – it was all there.  So if you wanted to, for example, learn details about the show you attended during Yes’s Relayer tour in 1974, jogging your memory was only a click away.  A more meaningless yet fun-filled hour of perusing a website there has never been.

And perhaps, never will be again.  The site is down, and has been for over a year, apparently due to a virus that rendered the database useless.   There’s no word on when it’ll be back up, if ever.

Note to hackers everywhere: if you must hack, can’t you hack something we can all agree on, like...I don’t know...how about neo Nazi or Al Qaeda websites?  You’d finally get some support for your efforts – applause, even.  But a site dedicated to the best prog-rock group ever?  Come on!

All this just goes to show that nothing in life is as permanent as we’d like to believe, or at least not the stuff worth saving.  Sure, that time you got canned for flipping off your boss (note: this is not a personal anecdote) might haunt you to your grave, but our attempts to record our histories – both personal and societal – are open to destruction.  What’s cool is that very often, they can be built back up again.  Like Aaron Lansky’s  efforts to save and revive a dying language (if you haven’t checked out the book Outwitting History, it’s a great read), sometimes people prevail over incredible odds.

You hear that, Yes fans?

Radio Essay: A Lyrical Education

Think Rock and Roll doesn't educate?  My essay, A Lyrical Education, was broadcast on Milwaukee's NPR affiliate, 89.7 WUWM, on their Lake Effect program.  This one includes snippets of Steely Dan, The Police, Supertramp and Rush.

Musical Cliches - guilty as charged

Two summers ago, I posted twoblogs on musical cliches and highlighted one in particular: the descending major scale in the bass line, used by virtually every rock band since the early 60s, me included.  It's an oldie but goodie, but there are plenty of other cliches out there, and when someone as unmuiscal as my wife notices one, it might be time for an artist to change his tune.

Last week, after a year of work, I finally completed my new album Warts and All, and while we were in the car listening to the beginning of track four, "There is no Reason"my wife turned to me and said, "Wow, you sure like that theme."

What she was referring to, and what I'd hoped noone had actually noticed, was a recurring theme I've used in multiple songs, whereby I play an octave in my right hand along with a minor or major third below the upper note, and then generally ascend up the scale for a bit and back down again.  For whatever reason, this phrase appeals to me, and I've used it in no fewer than four songs to date.  Give a listen...

Those were snippets from four songs: "Car Alarms" from 1996, "File It Away" from 2000, "What You've Done" from 2003 and "There Is No Reason" from 2012.  An oldie but goodie, indeed.  I also have an unfinished tune that I'm intending my daughter to sing that employs the same tecnnique.  But how that my wife has discovered my secret: that I have very few tricks up my sleeve and that I need to "lean on old familiar ways" (if you guess where that lyric comes from, you win a free copy of my new album), then maybe it's time to put that particular theme away for a while.

But the biggest cliche ever?  Check out the Axis of Awesome performing forty songs with the exact same chord progression:

That chord progression has GOT to be on my next album.